Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise. – Psalm 119:41
I’ll be honest, I have enjoyed finding items I’ve needed online from some time now. Especially, when it comes to gifts for other people. In our extended family, there’s an unspoken rule, that if you want something specific for a birthday or Christmas, it better be on your amazon wish list. Also, there are several items that we get regularly online now through subscription services, because of the convenience.
However, in this time (with a little extra time on our hands, as well) where many of the stores and shops that we might regularly go and look being closed; some in our household have taken to online browsing, and shopping. What I think is interesting about all of this, is that we aren’t the only ones, as we watch the delivery folks from FedEx, UPS, and the postal service stop at several house each day in our neighborhood dropping off packages. A few have even had grocery services deliver their essential items to their front door, and of course we’ve seen some pizza deliveries as well. The reality is, in our modern world, we really don’t have to go anywhere to get the things that we want. Everything can come to directly to us.
In our psalm today, that psalmist is exclaiming the greatness that is found in the ways of the Lord, specifically in God’s commandments. The psalmist is seeking to know the law of the Lord more deeply, and more intimately, because the psalmist believes that knowing and understanding the fullness of God’s commands is knowing the fullness of God’s love. Whether the writer realized this or not, they were absolutely correct. Much later when we meet Jesus, we find the very essence of knowing God is knowing the one who was the Word made flesh, the living law of God’s love. Jesus shows us that the love of God is as close as the breath that we breathe, and is always accepting of us no matter our situation. Jesus calls each of us blessed, and desires for us to know God’s salvation to the fullest.
The best news is, this love of God comes to us. It may be drawing us ever closer to God, but that drawing is not somewhere out there, but somewhere inside, in our heart, in the center of our soul, where we find God already is, waiting for us to claim the image of his steadfast love that is waiting for us, just like a package at the door.
What joy there is, even as an adult, opening a new package that waits at the door. Let me close with these words from the One who waits with the gift. “I am standing at the door, knocking, if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you, and eat with you, and you with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Grace & Peace,
Sam